Fuselage

September 16, 2006

Measured, marked and drilled upper baggage bulkhead. Trimmed per plan. Notched 2 places along lower edge where the seat belt cable will come through from it's aft anchor points.

Measured, cut and drilled Delrin seat belt cable wear blocks. Also made the square aluminum washers that are used when riveting the wear blocks to the upper baggage bulkhead. I suppose one could have used standard washers here, but I guess maybe it is one of those items to help meet the 51% rule.

September 20-21, 2006

Bolted the step blocks to the ribs and riveted the steps to the fuselage. Dave Gamble provided his assistance with bucking these rivets.

September 23, 29, 2006

I started to work on laying out my electrical systems since there will be necessary conduits and wiring runs throughout the fuselage. I'm using Gary Newsted's idea for a mid-fuselage junction box located under the forward pilot side seat floor. Wiring runs from the wings and aft fuselage will terminate here reducing the number of wires that will have to be run to the panel. I'll have more pictures on the mounting of this box soon.

September 18, 2006

After riveting the side skins to the longerons (the rivet between rivets, which hold the side skins in place until all the rivets along the longeron are installed) I clecoed the j-stiffeners and top aft skins to the bulkheads. The baggage bulkhead is just set in place for show. Starting to look like a real fuselage now.

September 30, 2006

Match drilled the upper and lower baggage bulkheads to the F-706 bulkhead and center bellcrank channel. After match drilling was complete, plate nuts were installed on the F-706 bulkhead and bellcrank channel. The bulkhead is held in place with screws in final assembly. Also installed some other miscellaneous plate nuts on a couple of the side baggage area covers. This was the first time I had to actually climb inside the fuselage to work.

October 1-2, 2006

Cut and fabricated the seat hinges and angles and fabricated the forward tunnel cover and tunnel cover Z-brackets.

October 4-12, 2006

Began fabrication of seat backs. The seat backs consist of corrugated aluminum sheets that are framed on the all four sides with aluminum angle to make them stiff. The seatbacks attach to the seat floor with hinges and are adjustable by moving the seat back to one of three hinge positions by simply removing the hinge pins. The upper seat back brace will adjust the angle of the seat back by slipping the upper seat back brace into one of three slots on the seat back bulkhead. The upper seat back brace pivots on the seat back via a hinge. After match drilling everything, it was time to debur all the holes and edges.

October 13-14, 2006

Marked and match drilled the seat floor hinges to the seat floors. To make it a little easier to match drill, I first made the pilot holes with a #40 drill bit through the hinges and seat floors then enlarged them to #30 final size. I found it much easier to make the original pilot holes with the smaller bit. Deburred all the holes when finished.

October 21-25, 2006

There are several covers in the cockpit area, The tunnel cover (left) covers a portion of the pushrod where it goes through the cockpit and the forward floor cover (right) covers fuel lines, wiring on the cockpit floor area. This cover also will be the location for the fuel selector valve. I have decided to install an Andair Fuel Valve which I purchased at Oshkosh this year along with an Andair gascolator.